Voltaire — To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize

Friday, November 29, 2013

Police digging up mass graves in western Mexico have now found human remains from at least 54 victims there

The grim figure released by Mexico's Attorney General's Office was the latest since authorities made the startling find recently of dozens of hidden graves during an investigation into the disappearance of two federal agents. So far, authorities haven't said whether the missing agents' bodies have turned up in the hidden graves found in La Barca, a town near the border of Mexico's Jalisco and Michoacan states. Prosecutors say that they haven't identified the bodies they've found. Some of the victims showed signs of being bound, gagged and tortured, investigators said. Authorities believe that municipal police officers were tied to the federal agents' disappearances, Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam said. "We detained them, and from that investigation, we found a place where the federal agents might have been buried," he said. For years, authorities have described police corruption in Mexico as one of their top concerns as they combat drug cartels. Federal officials have said that the lower salaries of local police officers make them more susceptible to corruption. Recently, 13 police officers in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco were arrested and accused of running a kidnapping gang. The discovery of the hidden graves comes amid high tensions in the region, where cartels are battling for turf and government forces are cracking down on emerging citizen self-defense groups.